As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16
One of the guys I used to work with told me he would not like to be a Christian. When I asked him why not, he replied that he would never want to live the lifestyle of a Christian. He would miss sleeping in instead of having to attend meetings every Sunday. He would miss being able to use profanity whenever something went wrong. He would miss the parties and the drinking that he was accustomed to. He would even miss his cigarettes and his occasional cigar. He viewed being a Christian as someone who had lost all his freedoms. What he failed to realize is that he was the one who was the slave to sin, and the Christian was the one who was free from those slaveries. The devil has the world fooled into thinking that the things he is dragging them down to hell with are liberties. In reality, only Christians are at liberty.
Our text is not the only one that speaks of the liberty into which believers are brought. Consider Galatians 5:13: ‘For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another’. Just like our text, this verse teaches us that our liberty is not a license to sinfulness but an enablement to lovingly serve other Christians. Galatians 5:1 tells us to ‘stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.’ Here we have the admonition to not let the bondage of sin interfere with our freedom in Christ. In James 1:25, we have the results of the freedom received from the Word of God: ‘But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.’ The term ‘Christian liberty’ is not found in the Scriptures, but its principle certainly is.
Here is a list of freedoms that you and I have (and should rejoice in) because we are Christians: 1. freedom from the penalty of eternal damnation; 2. freedom from the fulfillment of the demands of the Law for salvation; 3. freedom not to sin and entangle ourselves in evil again; 4. freedom from the fear of death; 5. freedom from having to face the judgment of God; 6. freedom from religious rituals; 7. freedom to be part of the Great Commission; 8. freedom to worship God apart from tradition or religious obligations; and 9. freedom to boldly approach the throne of grace. And that is just the start!
We are at liberty to serve God and His people. That is the greatest freedom possible. – Jim MacIntosh